Day 6 more snow and more great openings

Yes, yet another great day's skiing and I am almost running out of great things to say about how much fun I am having here early season.

Overnight we had 4 cms of new snow and on the way to the hill it was snowing and continued for an hour or so which I guess gave us another 3 cms out of that cycle. Temps on the way to the hill were -6 and although the base temps may have warmed to around -3 I think the upper mountain temps stayed in the -7/-8 region all day which of course meant that the snow stayed in great shape. After the snow stopped mid morning things brightened up and we had intermittent sunshine through the clouds for the rest of the day.

I wasn't quite sure where the best skiing would be but with the hill very socked in I went to the Old Side and ran Snake Ridge and the newly cut lower section exit which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite runs on the hill. The logic was that it hadn't been really tracked up yesterday and the new snow would give even better untracked lines - the logic was dead right, it was great. Kangaroo to the Boom Load was very mellow and I was so glad to be able to speak to Fraser who headed the crew this summer that worked on Kangaroo and Snake and express my personal thanks for a good job well done - he did mention that my name cropped up more than once when they were working on Kangaroo so thanks guys.

After that that the day played out as -
Cedar Ridge - no new tracks and lovely soft snow all the way through the trees.
Kangaroo - again just really nice
Boomerang - as route back to Bear via the Goat Trail and mostly no new tracks on a soft snow base.
Snake Ridge - just as good as before and the lower newly cleaned section skiing just like a deep tracked snow dream.
Kangaroo - still good
Boomerang - also just like before, was I the only one going in there ?

After that I got word that the Saddles were about to open so I hit across to the New Side as quickly as possible to take advantage of it. Sure enough Corner Pocket was open with no tires showing and only about 5 easy jump turns to access the good stuff below. The good stuff was very very good being untracked deep powder and as far as I could see no avi debris or other hazards. I cut right into Easter Bowl which was tracked up but great soft snow skiing and a really nice way off the mountain.

I repeated the loops through High Saddle ( a bit tight because of the low snow base early season and icy about 5 turns in) and then Low Saddle ( as always steep with some icy bits but if you cut right as soon as you could there were untracked lines in deep powder snow all the way down the chutes. As with all the other Saddle loops it was an exit through lower Easter Bowl and then it was time for a short late lunch break.

After lunch I went back to the New Side and this is how it played out -
Knot Chutes - I took the traverse into the Tight Knot which was mostly untouched since it opened yesterday and I had some nice steep and deep powder skiing.
Corner Pocket - it had been so good that I revisited and found that the tires were still covered but you need to jump a bit tighter to get through the chute, after that the snow underneath and lower Easter were just as good as before.
Gotta Go - I decided to traverse across the top of the Knot Chutes ( which involved some quite big drop offs) and have a look at Gotta Go as I figured it would be untouched. I was wrong and I suspect my buddy Brad had been in there as he is the only other person I know besides me who is stupid enough to try this line this early in the season. In the event I jumped into the chute one to left called Google Earth and had deep untracked powder all the way down into Currie Bowl where my biggest danger was being taken out by my own slough.
Decline/Window Chutes - I had a crazy plan. I knew that Decline down to the Megasaurus Trail was good and having looked the the Window Chutes from the Bear Chair then the two areas linked would only not work if the top of the chute just below Decline was problem. In the event Decline only had two new tracks and was great skiing. The link through the trees was a bit sketchy with some deadfall but lovely deep tree skiing if you took care. The Window Chutes themselves were very good deep snow with just two tracks in front of me - awesome deep powder skiing and only a bit scratchy in the choke on the way out.

So it was last run of the day time. I should have mentioned that Lift Line under Timber had opened during the day and as usual had become my preferred drop from Timber Top to White Pass Load with the occasional detour into lower Big Bang - all deep untracked lines. For the final run I hiked up to take the Lazy Locals Traverse into Mitchy Chutes which were also very nice deep powder but a bit technical in the choke.

Final run of course was a rip down Skydive which still only had about 3 new tracks in it on a soft deep base. the lower section remained twiggy but more than compensated for by the awesome skiing in the upper sections. Beers in Griz with buddies then a hot tub at home, It's forecast to get pretty cold (-14) tonight and a few flurries tomorrow. The outlook is for fairly significant weather event just before the weekend so that we may get yet another good fresh snow cycle before the weekend crowds arrive, This season is just getting better.